To listen to songs through Megabox, users will have two options—purchasing the music through the service, or installing "Megakey" software onto their computer to listen for free. The Megakey software, as Dotcom explained to Torrentfreak, acts like ad-blocking software—except that it isn't. Megakey allows most advertisements to appear, but replaces about 15 percent of the ads served up by websites with ads hosted by Megabox.

"These new solutions will allow content creators to keep 90% of all earnings and generate significant income from the untapped market of free downloads," Dotcom told TorrentFreak. "I created an innovation that could solve the piracy problem."

Technically, since users are made aware of what Megakey is doing and are willingly allowing the software to be installed on their computers, Megakey falls into the same legal realm as ad blockers. But once it is installed, users won't necessarily know which ads are hosted on the sites they are visiting, and which are injected by Megakey. The ad injection mechanism of Megakey could also pose a major security risk to users.

If that isn't enough to give the music industry and media companies a case of indigestion, Dotcom has also announced that he'll be re-launching Megaupload later this year.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

To play devils advocate a bit: Users can and do install software which blocks your ads entirely. They get nothing in return except peace and quiet; you get nothing. Wouldn't you prefer they install software which allows some of your ads through? Compared to the former, you gain, they gain.

That said, a business model which automatically pisses off every other website on earth seems a poor choice.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

++The ads that appear on legally marginal websites uniformly fall into the more sleazy class of internet promotion. This is, probably, at least partly the result of mainstream ad networks removing their support from these sites, but it's clear that such sites aren't really that bothered as long as they're paid. And while I'm sure they'll make token efforts to prevent these ads serving up malicious scripts, I doubt that will provide much of a protection.

I suppose there are enough idiots out there willing to get infected for free music, though....

Yeah it sucks to see Dave Grohl and Slash and Adam Horovitz and Chris Cornell and all hurting for cash because they only receive a tiny fraction of their earnings from the Record Labels - while we all steal their music. Remind me to cry for them when they have to put their 5 mansions each up for auction to pay the bills. Sucks to be them struggling like that. [/sarcasm]

Except that for every Slash, there are dozens or even hundreds of label-signed musicians barely getting by. Pointing to the few that make it to the "filthy rich" point is just silly.

Also, they DO only get a fraction of their income from record sales. It's touring and merchandise (if that label hasn't wrapped that up tight too) that makes them rich. Here's a good article on it, I didn't realise how diabolical the whole thing was, and I'm still one of those silly fools that buys all my music on CD :

This is ethically wrongdoing confused by spreading it across multiple parties.

Artist compensation here is a red herring. What he is doing is facilitating you paying him with other peoples expected revenue. That he is only asking you to take a percentage matters not. That he is providing a service matters not. That is he sharing his cut with his so called content providers matters not. That you are implicitly giving up your right to control the adverts might be pertinent. That is not clear.

Yeah it sucks to see Dave Grohl and Slash and Adam Horovitz and Chris Cornell and all hurting for cash because they only receive a tiny fraction of their earnings from the Record Labels - while we all steal their music. Remind me to cry for them when they have to put their 5 mansions each up for auction to pay the bills. Sucks to be them struggling like that. [/sarcasm]

Except that for every Slash, there are dozens or even hundreds of label-signed musicians barely getting by. Pointing to the few that make it to the "filthy rich" point is just silly.

Also, they DO only get a fraction of their income from record sales. It's touring and merchandise (if that label hasn't wrapped that up tight too) that makes them rich. Here's a good article on it, I didn't realise how diabolical the whole thing was, and I'm still one of those silly fools that buys all my music on CD :

For any advertizers worried about losing clicks to Megabox ads, just purchase some adspace through MBox. I'm sure their rates will be perfectly competetive in the market.

And, yah, doesn't Google already do this?

So they'll have to pay twice. Once for the ad they want. And once to MegaWhatever to make sure their ad doesn't get replaced.

Its a shady practice. And i'm sure ad providers already have a hard enough time weeding out the mal-ware ads that pop up in the first place. You can imagine their screening process. "Pay me and your ad will be published".

The content providers aren't "so called". They ARE the content providers. My only control of ads is through adblock or noscript or such. Clicks are clicks. That's what is paid for by advertisers.

Your statements are illogical fluff.

I think you're confused. I posted this in hopes of clarifying another poster's position that I happened to agree with:

Quote:

Assuming the Mega ads would be targeted and for similar products as the original ads...

Blocking all ads means no ads are viewed. Neither the original advertiser nor the Mega advertiser receive any gain. Money is wasted, but fairly.

Replacing ads means any money gained from the ad goes to the Mega advertiser, instead of the original advertiser. Money is invested by the original advertiser but returns go to the Mega advertiser.

That's my take anyway.

And this, again in agreement with another poster:

Quote:

Well stated, much more clearly than my attempt.

Regarding your comment:

Quote:

My only control of ads is through adblock or noscript or such. Clicks are clicks. That's what is paid for by advertisers.

Actually, advertisers pay for the possibility of clicks. A small difference but an important one. If you buy an ad to be displayed to users of this service, and Megaupload replaces it with another ad, there is zero possibility that your ad will be clicked on. Your money was wasted thanks to this replacement.

Having said that, I don't know why any legit advertisers would pay for an ad there, knowing that it might not get viewed. Maybe at a huge discount vs AdSense or similar?

For any advertizers worried about losing clicks to Megabox ads, just purchase some adspace through MBox. I'm sure their rates will be perfectly competetive in the market.

And, yah, doesn't Google already do this?

So they'll have to pay twice. Once for the ad they want. And once to MegaWhatever to make sure their ad doesn't get replaced.

Its a shady practice. And i'm sure ad providers already have a hard enough time weeding out the mal-ware ads that pop up in the first place. You can imagine their screening process. "Pay me and your ad will be published".

No, just once like any other ad location. I can buy an ad through Google or Facebook or whoever. MB will be just one option.

Also , what do you think Google and other browsers/search engines do? They make their money through selling adspace, duh.

For any advertizers worried about losing clicks to Megabox ads, just purchase some adspace through MBox. I'm sure their rates will be perfectly competetive in the market.

And, yah, doesn't Google already do this?

So they'll have to pay twice. Once for the ad they want. And once to MegaWhatever to make sure their ad doesn't get replaced.

Its a shady practice. And i'm sure ad providers already have a hard enough time weeding out the mal-ware ads that pop up in the first place. You can imagine their screening process. "Pay me and your ad will be published".

No, just once like any other ad location. I can buy an ad through Google or Facebook or whoever. MB will be just one option.

Also , what do you think Google and other browsers/search engines do? They make their money through selling adspace, duh.

This is like adding a Browser toolbar. It's done all the time.

There are a hell of a lot of browser toolbars dedicated to injecting coupons for retail stores for those die hard couponers.

I don't agree with this at all. First off, yes, there are sure to be great privacy / security implications with this. It will have access to an extraordinary amount of user tracking, including user browser habits as well as the media that the user consumes.

The second issue I see which I am more concerned about is the fact that it blocks competing ads from websites without the consent of the website owner. Websites put those ads on their pages for a reason, and while I think it's ok for one to block ads on their own computer, replacing the ads I feel is a different matter. If you're willing to tolerate ads and you click on one, the money from that should go to the website that is putting up the ad space, not some freeloading 3rd party application. Furthermore, the fact that the ad swaps are random is even worse, especially if there is no clear markings that the ad is coming from Mega and not from the website it is placed on.

Its no different than using adblock to block the ad. Once the ad is blocked, I then choose to let someone else advertise to me that is going to give me something back in return, free music. Not saying Id allow the service to be installed on my PC, but if you are running adblock anyway, there is no difference.

Yeah it sucks to see Dave Grohl and Slash and Adam Horovitz and Chris Cornell and all hurting for cash because they only receive a tiny fraction of their earnings from the Record Labels - while we all steal their music. Remind me to cry for them when they have to put their 5 mansions each up for auction to pay the bills. Sucks to be them struggling like that. [/sarcasm]

Except that for every Slash, there are dozens or even hundreds of label-signed musicians barely getting by. Pointing to the few that make it to the "filthy rich" point is just silly.

Also, they DO only get a fraction of their income from record sales. It's touring and merchandise (if that label hasn't wrapped that up tight too) that makes them rich. Here's a good article on it, I didn't realise how diabolical the whole thing was, and I'm still one of those silly fools that buys all my music on CD :

Thats the fault of the labels and their predatory contracts. They give HUGE advances and then take all the costs of recording and touring and all the fancy hotels etc off the top, basically using up much o f the touring proceeds that would go to the artists, to fund their own bank accounts and other artists advances. Piracy has nothing to do with it.

Here is my take on what likely will happen: You install this add controller doohicky, you go to a website that has ads. Most of the ads that come up there will still be ads served by that website's banner-ad mechanism, and clicks on those ads will still behave exactly as before, which is to say the exact same ad revenue from those clicks still go to that website, not to MegaBox's ad mechanism. At some point, as you're navigating around that site, an ad served up instead by MegaBox's ad mechanism appears. You clock on THAT ad, and ad revenue goes to MegaBox. When the MegaBox ad program operates as to change what ads that come up, it likely doesn't change anything about the relationship to that website of the particular ads that it ISN'T randomly replacing with its own, those go through completely unchanged, only with the ones IT randomly ads to the mix does the ad revenue location change.

I might be wrong about it, but that's my hunch on this.

One thing I would HOPE would happen, tho, is that when MegaBox's add replacer mechanism actually DOES insert one of it's ads, I'd hope there'd be some indication in the ad space showing that this one IS coming from MegaBox instead of that website's ad mechanism. Say, all the MegaBox ads have a MegaBox watermark in them, or a distinctive-looking graphical frame around them, or something. I'd want to be able to tell at a glance which ones are from where, so I don't complain to a website that they have ads there I don't agree with, when in reality those ads are actually coming from MegaBox, I'd know to instead complain to MegaBox. Contrariwise, if I see an ad I don't agree with at a particular website, and I know from the lack of MegaBox visual markers on it they aren't coming from MegaBox, I can then then complain to that website knowing with confidence that I'm not complaining about an ad that doesn't come from them in the first place and thereby looking like a fool.

For any advertizers worried about losing clicks to Megabox ads, just purchase some adspace through MBox. I'm sure their rates will be perfectly competetive in the market.

And, yah, doesn't Google already do this?

So they'll have to pay twice. Once for the ad they want. And once to MegaWhatever to make sure their ad doesn't get replaced.

Its a shady practice. And i'm sure ad providers already have a hard enough time weeding out the mal-ware ads that pop up in the first place. You can imagine their screening process. "Pay me and your ad will be published".

How is this any different to me simply blocking the ad altogether. If I use adblock, no one gets paid, I dont see ads. If I use megabox, I dont see "some" ads, mega gets paid, other sites get some clicks and therefore get paid, and I get music. For a user, this could work. For advertisers, well, at least Im not blocking you totally now.

I use last.fm to upload all my tracks. I get paid nicely for it on a semi monthly pay out schedule.Last.fm is is free for listeners. It is an ad supported platform, with a subscription base as well if you don't want the ads. What he is doing is a spin off of that in my opinion, and seems to have a better pay out for artist.

As for MEGAUPLOAD.COM going back on line, it was taken down illegally and should have never been taken down in the first place.

As a Google Adsense user, I can see how his ad injection program could upset some people. That may cause some problems in the future. If is only affect websites he is hosting then that is a different story entirely. I just hope it doesn't hurt my youtube account revenue.

Wow, is like having a store and suddently have all of the ads in store replaced by others just because the clients want to get some free stuff, right?

That sounds great for the clients, and its terrible for store owners.

Way to go Mr. Kim, you are about to get rid of all the sympathy you earn.

No. This is like me ignoring all the ads posted by a store, within the store, and instead bringing a magazine with ads that I want to see in it and reading that while I browse the store Im walking through. Nothing shady, dishonest, or immoral at all. The store cant force me to view their ads and they cant stop me from viewing those ads a choose to, even WHILE I am shopping in their store.

I use last.fm to upload all my tracks. I get paid nicely for it on a semi monthly pay out schedule.Last.fm is is free for listeners. It is an ad supported platform, with a subscription base as well if you don't want the ads. What he is doing is a spin off of that in my opinion, and seems to have a better pay out for artist.

As for MEGAUPLOAD.COM going back on line, it was taken down illegally and should have never been taken down in the first place.

As a Google Adsense user, I can see how his ad injection program could upset some people. That may cause some problems in the future. If is only affect websites he is hosting then that is a different story entirely. I just hope it doesn't hurt my youtube account revenue.

They would not be able to remove ads from videos, thats silly. They would have to replace the whole video and player etc, much more complicated. But the rest is par for the course. If I choose to view someone elses ad while shopping your store, that is a CHOICE that is MY choice to make, not the advertisers. I can ignore or allow whatever ads I want at ANY TIME and ANYWHERE, not just the internet. KD's idea simply gives me a choice to get paid for viewing ads. Doesnt matter if those ads appear as a standalone on my pc, displaying on my desktop while I use noscript and adblock while browsing, or I choose to post these new ads over the ones I previously blocked. If you have an issue with this service from an advertiser standpoint, then you have an issue with adblock and noscript too. I have no sympathy for those "poor" advertisers, not getting all the clicks they expect with nothing in return. Sorry. But If Im to be subjected to psychological manipulation resulting in me wanting things I do not need, Id rather get paid for it.

The second issue I see which I am more concerned about is the fact that it blocks competing ads from websites without the consent of the website owner.

I don't see how you can justify totally blocking ads but disagree with blocking a small portion of those ads to be replaced with a different ad.

He must be a fan of TV in the US... as there is a form of that already done legally (many don't realize it).

Televised sports games very frequently digitally insert their own ads over physical ads in stadiums.

So, stadium has an ad for Bob's Cola on the wall at the back of the endzone. On TV, however, it's a Pepsi ad.

Every cable and satellite service injects their own localized ads. Why do you think when you live in Spodunk, Idaho you see so many ads for the local businesses in that area rather than businesses only located in Neerdop, Washington (locations obviously made up)? Nothing new here folks. Except that this is an article about Kim Dotcom and some people have just decided no matter what he does they're going to spew hatred.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

++The ads that appear on legally marginal websites uniformly fall into the more sleazy class of internet promotion. This is, probably, at least partly the result of mainstream ad networks removing their support from these sites, but it's clear that such sites aren't really that bothered as long as they're paid. And while I'm sure they'll make token efforts to prevent these ads serving up malicious scripts, I doubt that will provide much of a protection.

I suppose there are enough idiots out there willing to get infected for free music, though....

Could either of you please explain how this would be different than me using adblock and noscript? If I already use adblock, you arent getting ANY clicks, period.

The second issue I see which I am more concerned about is the fact that it blocks competing ads from websites without the consent of the website owner.

I don't see how you can justify totally blocking ads but disagree with blocking a small portion of those ads to be replaced with a different ad.

He must be a fan of TV in the US... as there is a form of that already done legally (many don't realize it).

Televised sports games very frequently digitally insert their own ads over physical ads in stadiums.

So, stadium has an ad for Bob's Cola on the wall at the back of the endzone. On TV, however, it's a Pepsi ad.

Every cable and satellite service injects their own localized ads. Why do you think when you live in Spodunk, Idaho you see so many ads for the local businesses in that area rather than businesses only located in Neerdop, Washington (locations obviously made up)? Nothing new here folks. Except that this is an article about Kim Dotcom and some people have just decided no matter what he does they're going to spew hatred.

Do you really not see the difference between a network buying the content with the implicit intent to substitute ads and some man in the middle replacing those ads without compensating the content creator?

Maybe you should flesh out your analogies a bit more before you start accusing people of bias.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

Except that your users may already be using adblock, were you as upset when it first came out? Also, it would NOT be megaB "defacing" your website as anyone who does not CHOOSE to use MB will not see MB ads. And, since the ones who do CHOOSE to see MB ads instead of your own, THEY are defacing your website of their own accord, AND CHOOSING to view a defaced version of your website. Unless they themselves, your viewers, CHOOSE to deface your website, you have nothing to worry about. Except adblock and noscript.

I think people's attitudes towards ad blocking is unfortunate. Right now it seems to be a practice that mainly resides in the fringe community of tech savvy users. I hope technologies like the one discussed in the article, which could potentially spread this stuff to the mainstream, don't flourish. I would hate for the ad supported content model to disappear. If it did we would end up with a choice between subscription sites or sites financed heavily by sponsored stories (kiss impartiality goodbye).

I use last.fm to upload all my tracks. I get paid nicely for it on a semi monthly pay out schedule.Last.fm is is free for listeners. It is an ad supported platform, with a subscription base as well if you don't want the ads. What he is doing is a spin off of that in my opinion, and seems to have a better pay out for artist.

As for MEGAUPLOAD.COM going back on line, it was taken down illegally and should have never been taken down in the first place.

As a Google Adsense user, I can see how his ad injection program could upset some people. That may cause some problems in the future. If is only affect websites he is hosting then that is a different story entirely. I just hope it doesn't hurt my youtube account revenue.

They would not be able to remove ads from videos, thats silly. They would have to replace the whole video and player etc, much more complicated. But the rest is par for the course. If I choose to view someone elses ad while shopping your store, that is a CHOICE that is MY choice to make, not the advertisers. I can ignore or allow whatever ads I want at ANY TIME and ANYWHERE, not just the internet. KD's idea simply gives me a choice to get paid for viewing ads. Doesn't matter if those ads appear as a standalone on my pc, displaying on my desktop while I use noscript and adblock while browsing, or I choose to post these new ads over the ones I previously blocked. If you have an issue with this service from an advertiser standpoint, then you have an issue with adblock and noscript too. I have no sympathy for those "poor" advertisers, not getting all the clicks they expect with nothing in return. Sorry. But If Im to be subjected to psychological manipulation resulting in me wanting things I do not need, Id rather get paid for it.

I am not an advertiser. I am just a member of ad sense, and they pay me for ad space on my websites and you tube account. You tube injects ad at random point of the video and on the page itself. If you have a YouTube account with a lot of hits you should look in to the ad sense program. how I got in to the program was through my youtube account.

My last.fm account is a whole different story. As far as no script. I use it too. I am all about freedom of the internet. I just fear what the corparate A-holes will get the government d*uche bags to pass in to law.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

Except that your users may already be using adblock, were you as upset when it first came out? Also, it would NOT be megaB "defacing" your website as anyone who does not CHOOSE to use MB will not see MB ads. And, since the ones who do CHOOSE to see MB ads instead of your own, THEY are defacing your website of their own accord, AND CHOOSING to view a defaced version of your website. Unless they themselves, your viewers, CHOOSE to deface your website, you have nothing to worry about. Except adblock and noscript.

Please. You know very well this will be targeted towards mainstream users. Depending on how stealthy the ad replacement works it's totally conceivable for them to have no idea that the borderline pornographic ad is coming from Mega and not your site.

The backlash will only come when someone uses the program and the goes to Facebook and sees right there in the page some porn ads. For the average user, Facebook is publishing porn! Facebook gets flooded with complains and then what?It's the same problem with any kind of content on any site. A site owner can control what ads they run, but not with this application. And the user is going to complaint to the site user, not to MegaBox, because they were gullible enough to install a program that promised FREE MUSIC in bold. If someone here believes that the average user(target audience for this) is savvy enough to identify where the ad is coming from, I want some of that faith in humanity for myself.

EDIT: Ninja'd by other people. I'm surprised this wasn't the first comment.

Let me make a personal case.I have a little website which supports itself with unobtrusive ads.

I try to provide a service and original contents to visitors and, using Adsense, I have a tight controlon the kind of ads that are shown (no sex, no religion, no make-money-fast-schemes).

I do not like the idea my site could be hijacked by this guy who will not only defraud me by about 15%of my (already quite risible) income, but, and this for me could be worse, also deface my webpages by showing the kind of crap ads Megaupload and the likes were showing.

I do not look forward to this...

Except that your users may already be using adblock, were you as upset when it first came out? Also, it would NOT be megaB "defacing" your website as anyone who does not CHOOSE to use MB will not see MB ads. And, since the ones who do CHOOSE to see MB ads instead of your own, THEY are defacing your website of their own accord, AND CHOOSING to view a defaced version of your website. Unless they themselves, your viewers, CHOOSE to deface your website, you have nothing to worry about. Except adblock and noscript.

Please. You know very well this will be targeted towards mainstream users. Depending on how stealthy the ad replacement works it's totally conceivable for them to have no idea that the borderline pornographic ad is coming from Mega and not your site.

Oh give me a break. If I CHOOSE to use MB, I can assume that any and possibly ALL ads are from them and NOT the websites Im viewing. Unless this was being done stealthily without my knowing that the program Im using inserts its own ads, then this is MY CHOICE. I CHOSE to view those bolderline porno ads by installing a borderline "illegal" program for free music. Im sorry but people are not as naive as you seem to imply. This guy afraid that his site will be "defaced" is being hyperbolic. No one that doesnt choose to "deface" his site will ever see a "defaced" ad. Not one single user will ever see an ad whose source they didnt CHOOSE to allow.

The backlash will only come when someone uses the program and the goes to Facebook and sees right there in the page some porn ads. For the average user, Facebook is publishing porn! Facebook gets flooded with complains and then what?It's the same problem with any kind of content on any site. A site owner can control what ads they run, but not with this application. And the user is going to complaint to the site user, not to MegaBox, because they were gullible enough to install a program that promised FREE MUSIC in bold. If someone here believes that the average user(target audience for this) is savvy enough to identify where the ad is coming from, I want some of that faith in humanity for myself.

EDIT: Ninja'd by other people. I'm surprised this wasn't the first comment.

No one is going to surprised by this UNLESS people install it willy nilly and dont realize that they installed ADWARE on their PC. There is nothing illegal and nothing that already isnt being done by other software, in different places and in different ways. Do we have to worry about borderline porno ads popping up on our TV stations when they replace ads in sports coverage?